One of the ways that Americans used to get around over distances was hitchhiking. Certainly out of favor today, in the earlier days of automobiles, particularly during and following the Great Depression in the early 1930s, people traveling who could afford cars often generously shared rides with those who could not. Trains did not go everywhere.
It didn't end in the 30s, and hitchhiking was common in the west through the 1960s. Before WWII it was associated with "hobos" and workers following harvests, and it became common for soldiers on leave during and following WWII. My father had tales of hitchhiking on trucks to follow the wheat harvests, riding in the beds, much like one reads in Steinbeck stories of the Great Depression.
It was my introduction to managing on the margins. I found a tiny cheap junky room with cheesecloth sheets on a narrow lumpy bed, a window to an airshaft and quite a bit of noise, as I found out. I toured the city core on foot for two days, Lombard street and all.
I saw a Dizzy Gillespie set at a club, which was a tiny dark cellar with a dozen tiny tables and a hog wire screen wall separating bleachers for the under-21 crowd - which I was. That underage area was jammed well above any modern fire code. It was interesting, but I really didn't understand jazz as much as I wanted to, not being a musician. I left after one set, quite bored. I also went to a Dave Brubeck concert, but he had moved on to more esoteric jazz than I liked.
The next day I stuck my thumb out for return to Monterey. I walked a lot, dodging cops on the expressway - a few hours of walking before I caught a ride - with the same guy, a sad older gay guy, who had given me a ride in. Apparently cruising, but he was kind enough when it was clear I was straight. This is 1963.
I returned home to Kansas for Christmas that year. No transportation money, but I caught a ride with a fellow serviceman as far as Laramie, and then stuck out my thumb again toward Denver. It was late and a trucker took me to Cheyenne, where I caught a ride south to Loveland. Standing along the road about midnight in winter with my thumb out, I caught the attention of some early 20s girls from Denver who put me up on the floor of their apartment. The next day I took the bus home, 300 miles east of Denver.
I had arranged to meet a return ride in Salt Lake City, but when I got off the bus a clerk told me my ride had called and cancelled. I didn't have the fare, so once again I stuck my thumb out, and managed to pick up rides west, back to Monterey. I was on the shoulder for a few hours, joined by one or two others, and we managed to catch rides through the night that are no longer memorable because we slept.
I later was transferred to Maryland and Fort Meade, where I also tried to hitchhike, but the east coast lacked the body of clear long route traffic that benefits a distance hitchhiker. I walked a long way out of Washington before I decided to find a bus. When I was later stationed in Germany, hitchhiking wasn't tolerated.
It was an interesting period, and a real adventure. I made many mistakes I had to walk my way out of. I walked miles out of San Francisco and Salt Lake City and Cheyenne and Washington, D.C. As many solo explorers and travelers find, you revel in applying your own resources - intelligence and knowledge, judgement, energy, endurance, patience, and resourcefulness. You come away knowing yourself and your capacities much better.
The times have changed immensely. Transportation has changed, and the webs of trust are frayed today. I wouldn't do it again, but I know I did it and learned a lot about myself. One of those life passages.
Scenemaker, 20 June 2017
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